


The Godswood

by tria_star



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-19
Updated: 2013-07-19
Packaged: 2017-12-20 16:01:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/889161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tria_star/pseuds/tria_star
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few months after the Tourney at Harrenhal, an imagined scene in the Winterfell godswood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Godswood

_“Rhaegar loved his Lady Lyanna, and thousands died for it.”_

— Ser Barristan Selmy

*     *     *

Deep snow encircled the heart tree in the godswood, half burying the face carved in its trunk. Only the eyes peered out over the drifts, oozing sap tears red as blood. 

Lyanna felt the eyes of the old gods on her, felt the cold seep through the fur coverlet she had flung over the snow. The night was warm, as winter nights went, but cold enough to make the stars shiver overhead, cold enough to turn her breath to mist. 

Turning, she slid an arm around Rhaegar’s waist and pressed herself against his back. The muscles glided beneath his skin at her touch, but the prince himself was aloof, uncommunicative. A chill had descended on his mood, as it always did after they made love, guilt following passion as sure as the seasons.

Every night since his arrival at Winterfell they had met in this fashion, burning with the memory of the day’s stolen glances. When they said goodnight, Rhaegar would retreat to the library tower rather than seek the guest room in the Great Keep where his wife waited for him. The pretext behind the prince’s visit, after all, had been to search through Winterfell’s ancient books and learn what he could of the Long Night and the legendary hero, Azor Ahai. But neither Rhaegar nor Lyanna believed they could maintain their facade for much longer. And the princess Elia, whose health was always delicate, seemed to be languishing in the bleak northern climate. Lyanna wondered just how much the princess suspected of her husband’s sleepless nights. 

Sighing suddenly, she flung aside the furs and sat up. The cold assailed her bare skin but she hardened herself against it, feeling the hairs rise on her arms and legs. Rhaegar turned to look at her. He briefly took in her nakedness, then dropped his gaze to the ground, eyes full of self-reproach. She loved him all the more for that. Though their guilt was a strange new feeling in herself, she was glad he did not discard his vows lightly. 

“We could leave, you know,” Lyanna said, and he raised his eyes again in surprise. Lyanna felt her pulse quicken, and she tried to keep her tone light. “You wouldn’t be the first traveling musician to disappear with a young Stark girl, after all,” she said with a grin. 

Rhaegar favoured her with a wry smile in return. “Bael the Bard was a wildling,” he said, picking up on her reference. “And that tale had an unhappy ending, if memory serves.”

Lyanna shrugged. “Then let’s write a better one.” She laced her hands around her white knees, challenging him with her eyes. 

Rhaegar sat up beside her, reaching for her cloak and wrapping it around her shoulders.  ”You know it isn’t that simple,” he said. “My father is the ruler of the seven kingdoms, I have a wife, I have two children — “ 

She stopped him. She had heard it before. “And did you have a choice about any of that?” she asked, pointedly. 

The look he gave her was pained. “It’s a strange world,” he said, “but the closer you are to power, the fewer real choices you have.” 

“Then the world is a stupid place,” Lyanna scoffed. 

Rhaegar blinked at her, then chuckled softly, shaking his head. Lyanna loved the way his eyes narrowed when he laughed. 

She laid herself in his arms and looked up at him, his silver hair framed by the ghostly weirwood branches that latticed above them. “Care to abduct me, Bael the Bard?”

He ran a hand over her hair with a sad smile. “I’ll think about it, Lady Stark.”


End file.
